Annual Heritage Ball

Last weekend, I attended the Annual Heritage Ball at Morningside. It's something that I have been to for the last four years and it really is a lovely evening out. Being a Heritage Ball, the costume options vary greatly. That afternoon, I ran a hair workshop for the attending members of the Australian Costumer's Guild - this time namely on Victorian hairstyling. I was a bit to busy styling to get any progress photos, but I did make sure that I got shots of the end results.

1830s Apollo Knots Style

1870s Early bustle

1880s Late bustle

My own hair was hidden under a wig again that I had styled the night before. All that I had to do to finish it off was pop in some flowers and a couple of huge white feathers. I am starting to get pretty decent at styling long hair behind me that I can't really see. It was a pretty simple do, but it served the purpose.

As for the costumes, I took my mum and dad along again, so they were all dressed up (and with masks). My mum wore her 1870s pink silk bustle again. We updated her mask with some feathers as a change of pace. As for my Dad, he was in his grey tailed suit, but I had made him a new vest as an early father's day gift. It is made of a chinese brocade that I picked up on sale with purple silk dupion lapels and pocket welts. I even went to the trouble of putting in the pockets. I think the more I do of the wretched things, the better I am getting at them - but they are hideously fiddly.

For me, I decided I wanted to wear my natural form gold bustle, but since I wasn't happy with my original ballgown bodice, I thought I would have another crack. I unpicked all the trimmings and tossed what wasn't usable. Thankfully I still have a good chunk of the gold fabric that I was able to get another bodice out (I still have more of it too). I hunted through a few fashion plates to get a little inspiration, and came up with a new apron and bodice option. The apron is made of some white chiffon that I had in my stash and trimmed with ruffled white silk ribbon (again from stash), and then a couple of pin-on fabric flowers. As for the bodice, I used my day bodice as a base for the pattern as I really like the hem and the neckline on it. This time though, the bodice features deep pleats in the back seams and front lacing. It is also trimmed in the gold lace that I pulled off my old bodice. I was a little disappointed on the night that it was a little too big across the shoulders (I suspect my body has changed from the sword training I have been doing these last few months). We pinned it to hold through, so it's not too bad, and I should be able to fix it.

I had an absolute blast of an evening and danced until I was ready to drop. You can really understand how some of the women stayed fit at the time - between being unable to eat heaps of food due to corset lacing and dancing the nights away, it would be easy to stay in shape. And before you ask, yes those are sparkly hello kitty shoes that I wore with my ballgown - I had forgotten that the shoes I normally wear were tossed after last year and had not replaced them with anything really suitable. I was comfortable at any rate.

Here are some of the other photos from the evening: